Running Up That Hill... an art experiment in great deference to one of my hero-ist heroes Kate Bush

Are We All Alone with the Rain and the Flowers...

This is the opening song from my scratch performance of stage show SewKee MmeGa: Alien. From. Inner. Space that I put on last year...

I need to get working to put back on again next year.,. So much I want to say!

Given the madness of the world lately and all the 'legal' murder, it feels like the themes of alienation, 'otherness' and fear of extinction are more pertinent than ever.

There is a massive and deep pain I am working out in all of this... an underlying mission to add to a discourse that humanizes all of us to each other..!

Love is our only hope - in every way. Love ourselves, of our planet, our children, our neighbours, our fellow world citizens. We are angry because we are empty, those who are empty become grasping, those who are grasping are blind, blindness causes all kinds of problems...

We need grace, all of us. Luckily, we aren't alone (although sometimes it might feel that way (that's what this song is about)).

Anyway... I've not slept much and am a bit delirious. I'll stop now.

Love x

Rich Mix, London. An original song written, composed and performed by Gemma Weekes. MD/Bass JJ Stillwell. April 27th, 2013

Jasmine Flowers grow so sweetly

in the pot you water weekly

do you ever wonder why they grow

do you even really want to know?

They're just flowers

And are we alone?

Are we all alone

with the rain and the flowers?

Watch the rain

drowning the pavement

on your way to some enslavement

do you ever wonder why it falls

does it really matter after all?

it's just rain

Watch it beating down your window

like it understands something

you don't know

do you ever wonder what that is

Is that really any of your business

it's just rain

Because we're alone

I feel all alone

with the rain and the flowers

Are we all alone

with the rain and the flowers?

.

Babushka Doll #FreeWriteWednesday

Babuska Doll

I have always felt like -
a whole set of babushka dolls -

one self - with it's own

individual heart - hidden
inside the next -
(and the next -
and the next -)
ad infinitum.

But this morning
I woke up and finally understood
I am
the reverse -
stepping out of myself -
bigger 

every time.

Washing dishes with the gloves off - Free-write 25 (26 'cause I fell asleep on my face mid flow) Feb, 2013

1.
Now she's washing dishes with the gloves off,
Just to feel something
a song grinding in her ear
if only -
really the deciding factor is,
who can you see yourself kissing on the mouth
it's not a regular inclination

she almost breaks a glass.

2.
The night will come down with all its predictable
dead weight
And she will slid under it with a cold sigh
and no accomplice
she keeps replaying -

3.
She had not been watching his lips when he spoke

4.
How his flat swam around her warm and
easy like water -
and it had been so cold outside -
every part of this tale tells the same story
from how a coffee cup sits on the table to how
his laughter is a familiar shape -
reminded her of memories she hadn't made yet
and she sat in that water
in her own dirt
getting clean

5.
and he made her giggle - chuckle - choke
til her stomach was in her neck
any second her mind was gonna snap open
and spill her heart all over the floor

6.
these the kind of days that eat time faster
than fucking death or light

7.
And she thought if only -

8.
She was saying to herself
you have to shut up please
shut up please
shut up
and outward a torrent of nonsense
and ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa

9.
against his neck,
she would be quiet -
against his neck -
she kept trying to swallow the
thought down but when that
thought hit her stomach acid it
turned into a bunch of anecdotes she

relayed with the speed and coherence

of a benzedrine addict

10.
she hadn't been watching his mouth when -

11.
and why are certain ways of being
just native when you see it?
Cos you are so awkward even to yourself
so made-up-on-the-spot but this one -
ahhh! he is inevitable - he is - oh man
he is home remembered in a sepia photograph
he is clean as your parents before
they outed themselves as human
(except he is so self-admittedly human!)
 
12.
And when he asks how she is,
He means it, and is neither
moved nor repulsed by tears
which allows her a rare dignity

 
13.
She doesn't say: dude - can I sit in your lap?

14.
And she didn't watch his mouth when he spoke
she was sure to look at his nose or thereabouts

15.
He says 'and den' instead of 'and then'
even that shit is cute
 
16.
Now she's washing dishes with the gloves off
just to feel something
 
she almost breaks a glass

17.
Coma -

you are me i am you

you are me i am you

            Free-Write

Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 12:20am ·

 

Be with me-
Be with me now please-
come on-
close the door-
shut the curtains-
be with me-
in my darkness-
no-
in my small hours-
in my nightmares in my in my-
embarrasments-
be with me in my-
sweaty clothes in my-
unworthy thoughts-
don't avert your eyes don't leave-
don't turn on the television-
don't check your phone-
just sit-
sit with me in-
in my box-
in my cage my dirty tissues
my running-
my standing still-
be with me in this room-
too small room-
my low ceilings -
my crumblings my peeling-
my fading- no no!-
be with me in my tunnelling-
must get out!
in my stagnation in my nowhere
in my going nowhere-
in my sickness-
no! no! don't be the cure
no no - hold the vigil
light the candle, sing the song
no no no no no
be with me in my chest-of-knives
be with me in my cowering
my fear, my jealousy my
NO
backwards-looking
be with me in my scars
no sorry sorry no
be with me now where I am
no escapes and no beginnings
don't even crack the window
be my proof
no no no
be my witness
see me see me
the kind of world the world
doesn't want to see
bury yourself
no no no
bury yourself with me
velvet, soft like a coffin
stay with me
no no no no
must get out
stay with me
stay-
until you are me
and I am you
and you are locked
and I am free

End Station

First free-write in ages... Need to get back into the habit of doing it weekly as I first intended (part of my 'Free-Write Wednesdays group on facebook'). It's a good way to keep my courage up and stay in the habit of sharing. An antidote to all the creative hoarding that's become my specialty (piles of metaphorical decade-old mind junk piled up to the ceiling.) I would appreciate any feedback I might have.
I was listening to this when I wrote it.  Check it out.

Enjoy.
Soon,
Gxxx

People get off
people get on
train speeds blind towards end station
we sit in dumb acceptance
of the technology
hurtling us forward
we read quietly
we chew over more immediate concerns

but moments
when reality separates
when you, through tired human eyes
steal a glimpse of sweetness
near terrible

hugs exchanged between children
man opposite reading a newspaper
he is somebodys boy

a heaviness in the chest more
honest than sentiment
an awareness - in your crossed legs
in the roots of your hair
in the noise of the underground
blood knowledge that
everyone is born
and everyone will die
between those
a heady constellation of
thoughts and practices

all these bodies - fragrant - churning
growing , degenerating
renewing themselves in
the bridge of smiles
the bridge of tears - the bridge of gazes
and knees touching
empathetic shrug and grin

sometimes - sometimes
we are doors left open to each other
we glimpse the uncleared kitchen table - coffee stains
and bills
and all the paraphernalia
of a repetitive yet
uncertain life
the train speeds blind toward it's destination
we sit in dumb acceptance of the miracle of technology
reading quietly
chewing over more immediate concerns

Love takes off the masks...

James Baldwin is a huge inspiration to me always - because of his great compassion - because of his ability to maintain a ruthlessly steady gaze - piercing right through the beauty and ugliness - into the heart of what it means to be human.

There are no shortcuts. It's a way of living, to cut yourself no breaks, to live with an expanded heart, to pursue - personally and creatively - what's true instead of what's easy. To see beyond the daily transactions of our own needs into who we are and who others really are. To not edit the complexity and the mess, but to embrace it instead. Whenever I start feeling a bit too excited about myself, I read some Baldwin and get a dose of humility. :-D ("You thought you were getting good, is it? Ha!") ("How did he learn so much in his normal-sized life? Mystery!")

Love you, James.

Gemx

The burden of making sense.

It's after 2am. The T.V. is on and I'm not even watching it. When did silences start making me so nervous? Silences and the dark. I'm going to eco hell. I'm not sure what I'm afraid of.

I tire of the burden of making sense. I keep waiting for things to be neat in my head. They will not be.  I'm swindling myself.

Life is not particularly reasonable. I'm scared of what will happen if I stop being scared of not making sense for at least as long as it takes me to put hand to laptop. If I just let go.  If I just leap full-weight into the gumbo of memory and trauma. If I just tell my stories. If my thoughts quit stalling and finally get naked. What forces in me will be unleashed?

I'm a little bit embarassed about my recent posts, not because of my opinions, which I'm pretty sure are the same, but because they're about my opinions. Opinions are important but they seem so small once they're out of your head. And then you're just waiting to see who'll agree. Which is also important, but small. Everybody thinks this and that about everything.  I'm so tired. I want to write about more than that. 

People aren't their opinions, are they? The opinions are just clothes, and underneath a mysterious, miraculous body firing with thousands of simultaneous processes, histories, tics, insecurities, projections, terror. I'm more interested in that.  I look at my son's face sometimes and I can't fathom it, how much design there is in that face, and how that compares to the anaemia of my thoughts.

If we could just look at each other like that, see that design, see that beauty and terrible vulnerability, what kind of world would it be, if we didn't see what people thought but what they were?

Zen Exhaustion or Help! Idealism Is Making Me Hate People

One is in a very off-key mood today.

The official (not-really) scientific term for this particular brand of angst is Zen-exhaustion. One finds through serious study that liquorice allsorts do not help, and neither do macaroons. (what is my obsession with coconut, anyway?) One has the urge to send angry text messages, or make tearful, impassioned phone-call speeches that begin "Why are you being this way! All I ever try to do is be decent - *sniffle* - and fair and kind and decent and it's not fair because....!"

Ah, fairness! Why are we born with this expectation? Sigh. One can only ever reach real maturity when one realises that the world is Frequently Unfair but it is an uneasy admission. Where does one draw the line between calm and activism, between acceptance and the drive for transformation? Between holding ones peace and speaking up? Between biting your tongue and punching someone else in the gob?

And how far do we take the idea that we are creating everything in our lives?

Is it possible... gasp... just sometimes, that other people are being BastardAssholes?

I am of that unfortunate group who makes themselves accountable for every thought in their heads and tries to keep it spotless in that old noggin, sunny and sweet and clean and clear of all debris. By debris I mean: irritation, annoyance, loneliness, anger, boredom, frustration, envy... all the uglies. When I say 'unfortunate', I don't mean to say that such mental/emotional hygiene is a bad idea. When I say 'unfortunate', what I mean to say is that for such a person, Zen-Exhaustion comes along and makes one very, very uncomfortable. And when I say Zen-Exhaustion, I mean the point at which a relaxed, rumi-guzzling, hippie-type female Finally Gets Pissed Off.

It descends like a flood. The crap the landlord hasn't fixed yet. That Knob who won't return your calls. The book that won't get finished. The crappy weather. The chores that must be done. The chicken that must be seasoned. The forms that must be filled. The selfish family members. The crappy weather. Did I say 'the crappy weather' already? Let me say it again: The Crappy Weather. And Other People! Why are other people such bastards all the time?! Ok, some of the time? (another sypmptom of Zen-Exhaustion is chronic hyperbole) And beyond all of this the great ontological questions which are usually abstract and candy-floss-like that suddenly densify into something far more tooth-shattering - questions like: What the actual f**k is this all for? Why is everybody so weird (including me)? Why don't people all just say what they're thinking? Why are all the really evil people doing so well? Why are all the sweet-hearted and vulnerable people suffering so much? Why are so many horrid things allowed? And what Can I Do About It, anyway? Everyone has a theory on everything but - for goodness sake - which are the right ones and what is fixable and what should be fixed and what should be left alone?

And one is so used to being the person everyone can rely on for a smile that the least bit of angst makes one feel... well... so dirty inside. And then one feels guilty and annoyed that one must always be smiling, even though no one has explicitly asked for such a service. And the great irony of it all is that the times one most needs to talk to people are the times that one is least inclined to do so. Because one is Pissed Off, and has not much sweetness to share. Especially when God Knows if anyone is Really Interested in Listening. Yeah, I'm capitalizing a lot of words right now. So sue me! (no, actually, don't do that. I really don't have the extra).

Anyway, the big problem with trying to Be the Change You Want To See in the World and all that positive crap is that, invariably, one raises ones standards of behaviour and then - inevitably - begins to expect more of other people. And then it all become somewhat counterproductive when you start to think...

Help! Idealism is Making Me Hate People.

If any of you can figure out what I'm trying to say, please give me a shout!

Love you all! Please be nicer to people, you bastards.

Gemx

Goodbye Whitney :-(

The night gets a little broken and
a little of the stuffing comes out

the first thing you feel is old. The second thing you feel is robbed
some people are more than people -

an era -
a cocktail of longago moments
a snapshot of you in pastel-coloured legwarmers
earlyyouth and innocence
her death is not
one nervous system stopping
its more like giving up
your childhood walking into your present and
saying "i give up"!

(But wait! Before you go - tell me
where do broken hearts go?)

Whitney was the one
who taught you about love!

from whom you memorized every vibrato
every voicecrack of heartbreak
before you'd so much as held a boys hand

taught you what it meant to lose
what it meant to long
in a way that seemed beautiful - in a way that felt
safe, as if being a woman would be no different than being a girl
but more fun!

mountains of curls
a face impenetrably happy,
a face too pretty and not beautiful enough to be tragic
the face of a girl who's voice knows everything

Every line from the top of
how do I know! to the bottom of I wanna dance
made you want
to feel that quality of pain - because love
would be worth it!
that was the promise in that voice
that voice that always seemed to have a whole lifetime buried in it!

not the type of voice that dies at 48 -
before you know what happens to broken hearts!

Its a voice that's been holding your hand
since before you knew what music was

it mattered not if she was a genius
not judged and critiqued like MJ
just complete and whole and far away
like childhood

you shut your mind to what she had become
as far away from herself
as innocence to cynicism -

the stuffing gets knocked out of the night a little bit
you are thinking of how sad it is
you are thinking of her daughter

but you are also thinking of yourself
thinking

in her songs

both of you
are the same forever

Euphoria Skank!!!

1.

When I get a good idea

going like this.. MAN! Ah - just like this

all juicy in my head like some kind of bomb - some kind of bomb made out of good shit like penny sweets

when I'm like this i gotta tell you - I have to do a funny dance!

I'm gonna tell you about this cos it's time I start sharing this stuff cos real talk

I am peculiar! And if I don't tell you about peculiar stuff pretty soon I won't be saying anything at all!

So let me tell you about this dance man -

i get a GOOD IDEA and I start walking like a

chicken all the way down the hall to my kitchen and I jerk my shoulders up and down

shuffle side to side and cackle to myself

and I might clap my hands in time to some rhythm of my thoughts coming down like the kind of rain

you make with a xylophone - I might actually spin round like some kind of Michael Jackson

one-woman tribute (bandless) band

I might do something really mad and

make a cuppa tea with two bags - one ginger and one black

and NOT EVEN MEASURE THE SUGAR - just drop it in! Just WHATEVER

cos something is HAPPENING TO ME!

And its the feeling I'm always waiting to feel - when I am

finally delivered of that promise - always idling away inside me - ticking -dividing cell after cell - the promise that I might make

something beautiful - real - that I might grab reality by its head - and hear the scream

and cut the chord! - that I may fling myself across my floor and

with pen and notebook and throw my chest wide

wide open like a skylight and the heavens might come crashing

through me - this poor wretched funny-dancing little single mothering bag of peculiarities - that all this stuff - this stuff that's TRUE - and real and human might come through - might coming crashing through me like a mob

a tumult - a chaos - a hurricane - a riot - an apocalypse of diamonds!



2.

Oh yes. And I'm bout to go hit that page again like some fool that owes me money.

I'm painting again!

Talking heads says it best in that track 'Artists Only':

I'M PAINTING! I'M PAINTING AGAIN!!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfYZFS7JvT0)

That cry of euphoric weirdness and doom... Just substitute 'painting' for 'writing'.

I'm painting, I'm painting again.
I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning again.
I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning my brain.

Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
Pretty soon now, will be a quitter.
Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
You can't see it 'til it's finished

I don't have to prove...that I am creative!
I dont' have to prove...that I am creative!
All my pictures are confused
And now I'm going to take me to you.

Sitting in bed in two pairs of trousers and two tops layered up and been sitting here for the straight 5 hours that constitute my workday (there is also the 3 or four hour worknight later once maternal duties have been taken care of). I am quite wolfishly happy with myself. My hair is a mess.

I have much project at the moment, probably more than even discipline can get me through, but we'll soon see. I am simultaneously in a sturdy frame of mind and also away with the mystics. I am all emotional about everything. The snow. D'angelo being back. My boy having lost a tooth already. All kinds of crazy-eyed joyful and also Caribbean-ly practical. I am still fully of happiness that 2011, that dirty old smelly vagrant of a year, is over. Oh yes. 2012, bring it on. Whats the worst that could happen? The apocalypse! Pfffft!

ANd I am writing a book (2nd draft) and a play (first draft) and an album (just to keep shit impossible, the way I like it).

I can't share actual text from any of my official projects (that would be crack-ish), though I shall no doubt be back to whinge about them. Instead, I shall share this little free-write (that of course has nothing whatever to do with my life or anybody I know or have ever met) I posted on facebook today during my break:

You and I are eternal
eternally
eternally leaving
stuff behind hoping
we'll have a chance to come back
trying to outwit the days that faster and faster
push us along
wrenching us
from one adventure
to the next so fast the road tangles
up in itself
and trips us
into each other

and we are wily as hansel and gretel
traces must be left
so tomorrow remembers yesterday
a pair of glasses - a scarf - a book
a bracelet left idling behind the broken television
we are forever
forever leaving ourselves places
so we can come back
to the times we were loved
that we smiled all over
and felt home
home.

we leave ourselves behind and go
with a smile
and a kiss that has medicine in it
a prescription for loneliness

a silent request that you
keep me close against your dreams
wrapped tight in all your corniest
white picket fantasies, so you don't pick up one
without the other
I am forever
forever leaving
myself with you
in the hopes
I will one day
be free
to stay -

In other news: Some people have angelic timing, don't they?

Back soon with a blog that's actually, like, coherent. Promise.

Huge gigantic whale shark-sized love,

Gemxxx

ARMIES

Been a while now, hasn't it?

I started the whole Free-Write Wednesdays idea so that I could outrun my inner critic at least once a week and make something - anything. The past few months, the inner critic has [quite evidently] won. But miracles and disasters have a way of shutting her up...



Public disaster and private miracle have conspired to wake me up before sunrise and have compelled me to pound away at my laptop...

Here's the 'disaster' bit first.

Won't bore with glib musings on state of affairs, will simply present today's offering:

ARMIES

You already know it,
when you call them 'greedy'
that this 'greed' is your greed
(the army of your nightmares!)
that spares nothing, cares for nothing, consumes
everything
you have given them billboards for hearts
you have sold their futures for figures
you priced them out of everything
even their own education
but they are wily though
(the army of your immorality!)
you call them wily
but as you say it
you know it is the exact flavour of your own trickiness
robbing with one hand while you distract
with the other
from every pocket, from every continent

spreading the pain, preserving your wealth
they are 'without conscience', 'careless vandals'
'careless arsonists', lit petrol bombs, big-chested in the firelight
(the army of your callousness!)
'mindless' like mindless made-up money
bombs like your bombs, 'empty' like you are empty

of everything but lies and justifications
their 'empty' is the exact hollow
shade of your selfishness
they burn at the exact heat of your
coldness
burning, burning the houses they will
never afford to buy
burning, burning the shops they can't afford
to shop at
taking the products that mean nothing

they have been told mean everything
they run in 'gangs' like your interconnected
gangs of moneyspinners and rhetoricspitters
(your army of thieves!)
they steal like you steal from us
they are the bad children
you are the parent who neglects
who abuses, who sells your children for
cash and for control
(the innocent army of babies
on the front-line of capitalism
the innocent army of babies on the front-line of racism
the innocent army of babies on the front-line of class-ism!)
you stand there
stand there and tell us
GO ON! tell us
like some retarded big-jawed effing super-hero
that you're going to send the army in
but you know and you know and you know
that
you ARE
what you condemn!

Can't say any more than that right now... But maybe next time I should. Or maybe next time I should talk about miracles...

Soon,

Gemxx

Cardigan

Tonight, I couldn't speak to you. So I fixed your cardigan. Is that why you left it behind? I wondered if you were cold, right then, at that moment, wishing you'd taken it with you. I took it off and put it in my lap. I got out my sewing kit and spent a long time closing up all the holes around the neck. Lots of tiny stitches, more subtle than words are. While I was sewing I thought round and round soothingly, "that's better... That's better... that's better." It will be hard to see it was ever torn at all. I was sad when it was finished. There should be a way to stitch the night closed. Nights without you are a slow unravelling.

Inshallah... inshallah... inshallah...

My Heart

My Heart - Free-Write 20/10/10 I am not afraid I am not afraid to stand all alone I am not afraid to stand all alone with everybody I am everybody I am everybody's love I am everybody's love tearing open I am standing I am standing with my feet in the soil I am standing with with my feet in the soil of the earth I am standing with my feet in the soil of the earth that is my earth (mine!) I am standing with my feet in the soil of the earth that is everybody's earth all alone with everybody's love tearing open with my feet in the soil with my head in the clouds puffed up and floating all a-mingle with everybody's vapourish dreams of thunder crying rain down into the soil of everybody's earth soil of everybody's love dancing to my heart everybody's heart My heart is sweet, scarlet music. I am not afraid! ________ Every so often I get a leap in understanding, a leap closer to myself, and everything in my life becomes clearer. An actor/writer friend wanted me to take a look at a play he'd written, so in return, I asked for a little help with my performance technique. This was the day before yesterday, and it was all very informal. We just went through a couple of poems and he told me what he saw in them, and how to access the emotions of my work. As often happens in life, this exercise was illuminating in ways that extended beyond my performance technique. I realised that I try to shrink all the time, apologize for myself. I pull back when I long to go all out, I flake when I need to commit. I realised that I spend a lot of my time half-trying to express myself and half-trying to disappear. I had that little tutorial and it all clicked somehow. My entire being said: "ENOUGH!" So the next day(yesterday), I did a poetry performance that was filmed for an internet TV show, Manorlogz. It was a poem I'd done before, but something had changed in me. I wore red heels. I stood up straight. I didn't bother with my habitual 'look at me, I'm a poet but I'm like, suuuuch a mess' schtick but just paid attention to the piece and allowing myself to be alive on stage. It was liberating. It seemed like a microcosm of my life! All my shrinking had to stop! Fast-forward to today and I did my Free-write Wednesday offering, and the feeling crystallised into words. Every so often, I read something back and I get that feeling, 'yes! that's exactly what I meant!' And it's almost like being understood by somebody else. My eyes welled up. It seemed to mean something. No dexterous wordplay, I haven't excited myself with form, but I've shocked myself with the epiphany that I am full of joy - from nowhere, from everywhere, just to BE here. I got that feeling again where it seemed there was a clue to the order of things inside me, and that everything was connected.. I think maybe all artists - maybe all people in general - are stretching their fingers toward the light, trying to feel the pattern, order and beauty of the universe under the suffering. I am here. I'm here and I want to be here, deserve to be here, and need to be here exactly as I am, doing exactly what I do, feeling exactly what I feel. And you too!!! Jeez, I'm such a hippie... lol! Peas and gloves! xxx

To Whom it May Concern

Dear Everyone,

I am sick of writing. I would rather do anything else instead of writing. Writing makes me very scared and tired and leaves not very much time for speaking with friends or watching television. It makes me scared because it's so big, and I am such a small part of everything, and it feels like life is speeding by while I sit in a corner with a dunce cap on turning words this way and that to catch the light and going 'duuuuuuhhhh'.

I'm sick of constantly trying to find the right words to say things when there are so many words and so many things but at the same time too many words and not enough things and too many things and not enough words. I'm afraid that life is going to speed over my head like rush hour traffic.

I'm afraid that everyone is forgetting about me and talking behind my back and saying "where is she? Dead?" and saying what a rubbish friend I am because it doesn't seem like I'm ever really around and I barely go anywhere or do anything and what a weirdo and what exactly is she trying to make, anyway? I am sick of writing because so far it has taken me 432 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, a day, an hour and10 seconds to do this one draft. Or at least a year and a half.

I am sick of writing because everyone else has much more interesting things to say and report on Facebook and Twitter about all the shinier things they are doing and all the cooler things they are doing with words on various stages and theatres and even on TV instead of alone in ratty exercise books. I'm very scared a lot that I'm not big-brained or deep-souled enough to say all the beauties I'm desperate to put in this world.

I'm sick of writing because it creates this weird compulsive seeking of loneliness where you pray someone will call but then if they do, you don't pick up, and you're not sure what call it is you're really waiting for because it's pretty certain that God doesn't need your digits to reach you. Or really what you want is a warm, re-grounding hugging and loving and sweetness that's unavailable on a regular basis as yet because Things Are Not Established even though there's this guy who completely abolishes you with light like having the sun in your eyes.

I am sick of writing because my back is really painful from hunching over and falling asleep in my notebook and as a consequence I am never comfortable in any position apart from maybe in a hot bath which I very rarely have time for. I would rather be racing my son in the park and teaching him how to count with cotton balls. I would rather be listening to music. I would rather be eating pizza. I would rather be kissing. And I am sick of writing because no matter how sick I get of writing it is always the only thing to do because it's the only way I get to keep all of those things, the running and the kissing and the pizza, turning them this way and that to catch the light and going 'duuuuuuhhhh'. Even if I one day get senile dementia, or when I'm completely extinct or even if the world has ended I will have written those words and writing is the only way I get to say things like 'being abolished with light' which makes love always an especially beautiful thing no matter what becomes of it because this way I get to keep it all even while I'm giving it away and maybe now I've said all of this I can [sigh] finally... get back to work.

Free-Write Wednesdays

To help ease the feeling - neck-deep in my second novel - that I'm accomplishing absolutely nothing and will witness the complete collapse of Western Civilisation before even a first draft sees the light of day - I started a little group on Facebook called 'Free-Write Wednesdays' where members post/share a free-write every Sunday. Okay, I'm joking. Every Wednesday. Check it out here if you want to get involved: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=21727182150&ref=ts From now on, I'll be sharing mine on this blog as well as facebook, but here are the last 2.

Enjoy...?

Gem xx

Freedoms and Hungers - Friday-written Free-Write Wednesday 13/08/10

by Gemma Weekes on Friday, August 13, 2010 at 1:11pm

Now let me tell you about Johnny, do you know Johnny? Me, not so much. Johnny most of his life has been a free-wheeling, shiny-shiny man with his body always sky-angled and every movement in life he takes in the pursuit of open spaces. I don't know what to write about him except there is a lot to be learned from this man about freedom, what freedom is and what freedom does. It's a slippery word, he says. If you've pinned it down, then you've lost it, if you chase it, then you're a slave to freedom. And to be a slave to freedom is an oxymoron, no? He has an interesting turn of phrase halfway between an academic and a madman. He tells me the problem with human beings. He says the problem with human beings is that all human beings want a home, and all human beings are natural runaways. Sometimes they just want a home to runaway from. Sometimes they just want to runaway so they can feel that pull and tug of home deep down in that deep down swamp of their hungry bellies. He says to be human is about hunger, and that freedom is one of those hungers that sometimes directs you away from food. There's that pull always between the man who wants love, a wife, a room, a house, an ideology, a passion, a life-work, a God, and the man who only wants the freedom of wanting nothing. But what the hell do I know, I say to himself. I'm not Johnny anymore. I'm just a pile of rags piled up in the subway of Old Street Station. I've not been Johnny in a long time.

Love - (late) Friday Wednesday Free-Write - 06/08/10

by Gemma Weekes on Friday, August 6, 2010 at 4:22pm

Your profile over there, waiting
eases my face open, smiling, eases
my chest open, loving, and the night open
with dreaming, that universal dreaming
of embraces and homecomings.
We lead each other through the dark,
blind and deaf to the noisy cityscape. All is hush.
So good to see you. Good, right, true -
affirmative. I don't have
much more to give than words
but I cooked you dinner
I like watching you eat. I would do much more.
many days of conversation have piled up.
Gestures, insights, complaints, enthusiasms
and steep drops sometimes between words
when I am just -
looking at your face. I know this face
with more than my eyes. Our kisses are
too much joy for one body. I'm meltiiiing! I joke
Gosh, didn't God knit you beautiful
I'm clever just to make you laugh
so He can hear you.
What a sweet tangle we are
the smell of your neck makes me cry secretly
i haven't cried many years just
from awe! A great love is in me, bigger
than the sound of rivers or the
depth of sky outside my window
big, and deep, and quiet
I don't know big enough things to do with it
my mind is an orchestra of silence
the quiet after goodbyes with you is
like a blanket of snow on christmas morning
all is hush and sacred, and a train platform
becomes the scene of great humility and
passion
I surrender. something has happened to
me, is happening to me, and maybe we are
happening to each other
maybe -
i want to write something clever but my my mind
is drunk, all real love is mystical
all real love is God's -
(thank You)